Re: Vulnerability scanners

[Alex Russell <alex () netWindows org>]

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On Thursday 27 March 2003 12:58 pm, Jeff Williams @ Aspect wrote:
> Let's assume that you're talking about 256 IPs (based on Qualys'
> published pricing), and you want to scan weekly.  That's at least a day a
> week of effort for someone (probably more to generate a very nice report
> and summaries).  The cost of a full-time sysadmin (including salary,
> benefits, office, etc...) probably costs well north of $100K.  You'd have
> to include some equipment costs in there.  So I doubt you could do it
> much cheaper. I think vulnerability scanning is a reasonable thing to
> outsource for companies that are not in the security or networking field
> already.

This sounds like a false economy to me.

First: how does the Qualis box remove the need for a sysadmin? It's just one 
more appliance to manage, and something your existing admin should be able 
to do anyway. And if you already didn't have an admin, you'd need one now 
that you're thinking in terms of security. No extra cost here (aside from 
incremental admin time).

Secondly: if you've got a trained monkey doing your report generation, then 
you're right about the costs. If, however, you have a developer automate 
most of that, then you can add more nodes to be scanned at much lower 
incremental cost (change a config file). Additionally, using public 
signature sets may have downsides, but using Open Source tools is good both 
for your own internal flexiblity and for the world at large (checks aren't 
quite right? set that developer to work writing and contributing back 
better ones!).

All in all, your initial costs to do it in house with smart people and Open 
Source tools might be higher, but your incremental costs do not grow at 
nearly the same rate. OTOH, if you don't have any admins or developers, 
then Qualys might look like a very nice option.

HTH

- -- 
Alex Russell
alex () netWindows org
alex () SecurePipe com
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